Gone
by Lost Calamity
Summary: When Max is gone, Fang is left to take care of the flock. What will happen to them?
1. Chapter 1

**((A/N: Well, this idea randomly came into my head, so I just decided to write about it. This first chapter is probably kind of rushed, but I was tired when I typed it up. . Anyway, I hope it's okay! This is my first try at a Maximum Ride fic.**

**DISCLAIMER: James Patterson owns Maximum Ride; I don't.))**

"Max?" I looked up as I heard my voice being called. "Max… Where are we going next?"

I sighed. _Here comes the hard part…Coming up with a plan. _Normally, I usually just made things up as we went along. It was a lot easier than doing something stupid, like coming up with a schedule or something. "Uh…" I paused, trying to think of a place. "Maybe… Illinois?" I nodded, going along with it. "Yeah, we'll go to Chicago."

"Oh, well, okay," Nudge was silent for once, obviously at a loss for words. We had been on the run for a couple of weeks now, trying to hide from all the evil people who wanted to murder us and whatnot. Everyone was tired, especially the little kids. They didn't have as much strength as the rest of us. We had already been in the air for about six hours.

I quickly glanced over at the rest of the Flock, noticing how exhausted and dirty they looked. Everyone was silent, seeing as talking just wore them out even faster. "Okay, so um… Does any-"

I was interrupted by Fang, who spoke quietly, "Max, I think we should stop for the day. Everyone's tired."

I was kind of surprised by his interruption, though I blew it off, figuring that it was nothing. Eventually, I nodded and said, "Okay, guys, we're going down, I guess. Maybe there's a hotel that we can stop at nea-" I was cut off yet again as I felt a sharp pain in my wing. For one scary instant, I forgot how to fly and I plummeted to the ground. I had been shot; at least, that's what it felt like. My eyes fluttered open and shut as I fought to regain consciousness. What was happening? Was I just going to fall to the ground and die?

"Max!" I heard the distant yells of the flock from on top of me. The next thing, I knew, someone had caught me and was struggling to land. I jerked open my eyes, looking straight up into Fang's concern-filled eyes. He was staring down at me, his eyes wide with surprise. I sighed with relief as I saw his face, though there was pretty much nothing to be relieved about.

"It's alright, Max," I heard Fang mutter under his breath, stumbling onto a halt as he landed on the dusty ground. He set me down on the ground gently, then felt my wing, checking my wound. "Max, it's alright. You just got shot in the wing; don't worry, everything's okay. Everything's going to be okay." He repeated the same thing over and over, as if he were trying to reassure himself. I began to lose consciousness, barely aware of the rest of the flock landing around us.

I was beginning to zone out, due to the fact that I had already lost a lot of blood. How much exactly…? I couldn't tell, but I knew that it was a lot. I could barely even see the flocks' faces as they looked down at me anxiously. I could barely hear their voices. …And I felt so pathetic. I hated this feeling of helplessness, this feeling of vulnerability. It made me angry to realize that I could die this very instant, and leave the flock on their own. What were they supposed to do without me? I was their leader, and I was supposed to take care of them. Who would bandage their wounds? Who would secretly push the salt shaker towards Iggy's hand, so that he wouldn't have a hard time finding it? Who would take care of Angel?

Unlike what everyone says, your whole life does _not_ flash right in front of you. All I could see was blurry images of my friend's faces. One face was perfectly clear to me, though. The last thing I saw before I lost consciousness was Fang's tear-stained face.

**((A/N: Okay, so I'm not sure if Fang would really cry or not, but I had no clue what to write. Please review if you read this! ^_^ Oh and yeah, I realize it was kinda short.))**


	2. Chapter 2

**((A/N: Um… I'm not really sure at what point in the books this story is taking place, so when I figure it all out, I'll tell you guys. xD Sorry for the slow update, too; I've been kinda busy lately. Oh, and this story will probably be using Erasers and not Flyboys. Oh, and the story has now changed to Fang's POV.  
**

**Disclaimer: Oh, James Patterson owns Maximum Ride, not me.))**

_Fresh tears slid down my cheeks as I watched Max die. I wiped them quickly away with the sleeve of my shirt, realizing that I was doing something I had never done before: cry. I wiped even more tears away, but they were impossible to stop. They just kept on coming. _

"_Max! Max!" I said, gently shaking her shoulders, ignoring Nudge, who was coming up next to me. Nudge knelt next to Max's body, which was lying limply on the dusty ground. I glanced up at Nudge's face, seeing the tears fall from her eyes. "Max," I called out for her again, though she wouldn't answer. It was hard to accept the fact that she was really dead…_

"_Max, wake up. Come on, wa-" I said, but was soon interrupted by another voice._

"I said… WAKE UP!"

Feeling a sharp kick to my side, I groaned. Blinking open my eyes, the first thing I saw was Gazzy's mischievous expression.

"Sorry I kicked you," He apologized, though he didn't look sorry at all. "You wouldn't wake up, so there wasn't much I could do, really…" He grinned slightly at me.

I rolled my eyes, "Uh huh, yeah, thanks for waking me up." I quickly scanned the area, making sure that the rest of the flock was there. Angel was sitting in a tree with Total in her lap, and Iggy and Nudge were eating granola bars. "Hey, Ig, could you pass me one of those granola bars?"

He looked up in my direction and tossed a bar, which I managed to catch. It was a little off course, though, since he was blind and all. I quickly unwrapped it, tossed the wrapper to the ground, and took a bite, trying to decide where we were going to go next. After Max had died, we had stayed on the run, mostly moving from state to state. We were currently in some forest in Minnesota, trying to hide from the Erasers who were chasing us. We had been hiding out here for a couple of days or so, and everyone was getting tired of it.

Just then, Angel said, "Um… Fang…? When are we going to leave?"

I sighed and glanced at her, quickly swallowing another bite of granola bar before answering. This was the hard part; how had Max made this leader thing look so easy…? "Um…" I shrugged my shoulders in response to Angel's question, "I guess we could keep on going… east. To Maine or something. That might be nice."

"But why can't we go west? To Washington?" Angel asked stubbornly.

"Because I said so," I mumbled under my breath, already annoyed with how she was acting. After all, wasn't_ I_ supposed to be the leader? It sucked. Max always got the kids to listen to her, but they never once listened to me. "Whatever," I said, pretty much fed up with the whole situation. I extended my wings, glancing at each of them in turn. "I'm going west to Maine, and whoever wants to come can just follow me. Anyone else can just stay behind or do whatever." Without another word, I took a running start and leaped, careful to avoid the trees.

Even though I felt sucky and horrible for spending the last three days in a forest, I couldn't help but grin as the rest of the flock followed me, even Angel. I guess all I had needed to persuade them was just a little reverse psychology…

**((A/N: I think I hate this chapter. Anyway, I didn't really do a good job on it and it's really short, but that's because it was rushed. I just wanted to get a chapter up to show that I was still alive and all. xD The next one will be better. Please review!))**


	3. Chapter 3

"Does anyone else think it's unnaturally quiet or is that just me?" I heard a voice over to my right ask. I quickly glanced over, realizing that Nudge had spoken.

I shrugged once, not really sure what to say, then mumbled under my breath, "Well, I don't exactly think anyone feels like talking right now…"

"If you think it's quiet, we could always just blow up a bomb or something. Those can be pretty loud…" The Gasman suggested, glancing once over his shoulder as we flew. "I think I have an extra in my backpack… We could always use that," He said, looking like he was deep in thought.

"Great idea," I heard Iggy mumble. He then went on to talk about some technical stuff about bombs, which I ignored, due to the fact that I hardly understood what he was even saying.

Shaking my head, I muttered to myself, "God, no, please."

Nudge sighed in frustration and said, almost sounding annoyed, which was pretty strange for her, "No, that's not what I meant. I meant that we haven't seen any… Erasers or anybody from Itex for awhile. What happened to them? I thought they were still chasing us… The last time we saw them was uh… that one time in that park or whatever. Why do you think they stopped chasing us?"

"Well, maybe they finally decided to leave us alone," I mumbled, rolling my eyes. "How should I know why they stopped chasing us?" I asked, sounding a bit harsh, even though I hadn't meant to. "Itex is a weird company. Besides, they're leaving us alone for once. You should be happy, not complaining." Okay, I know I sounded at least a little bit mean, but I was cranky; and it was hard being on the run, especially when you have kids complaining to you about not being chased by evil scientists or whatever.

Nudge's thoughtful face fell as she heard me say that, and she only nodded once, then mumbled, "Yeah, sure. Whatever you say, Fang." I glanced away from her, though I could've sworn that she rolled her eyes when I had looked away.

"Fang?" I heard another voice, then glanced over at Angel, who was speaking quietly to me, her expression worried. I sighed, not at all alarmed by Angel's expression. Lately, the whole flock had worn that same expression, so it's not like it was something new. "Um… I need to tell you something."

"Yeah?" I asked, shifting my gaze to straightforward as I waited for her answer to my question. "What's up?" When she didn't answer for a few moments, I sighed, slightly annoyed. _Okay, just calm down, Fang, _I told myself, _No need to freak out or whatever. _My patience had just recently run thin, and it didn't take very much to tick me off. That was the thing about being on the run your whole life and having to deal with all these problems: it eventually caught up to you.

Eventually, I heard a reply from Angel, though she spoke so quietly, I had to strain my ears to listen to her speak, "There's uh… there's someone… else here."

That immediately grabbed my attention, and I glanced at her, narrowing my eyes, "What are you talking about? How can there be someone else here?" That was impossible… Seeing as we were at least 200 feet in the air. There was no way there could just be someone hanging out up here.

She just shrugged, closing her eyes, then reopening them a moment later, "I can just tell… There's um… another mind here… but uh… I don't know where that uh… person… is."

"Well," I mumbled, trying to think of what to do as I glanced at the flock, checking one more time to make sure that all of them were there. I quickly scanned the sky around us, though I saw no one, "…Just uh… Just try to figure out where this person is, okay…?" At this point, I wasn't sure if I believed Angel or not. There was no way there could be someone up here… unless that someone was an Eraser. Then again, they weren't exactly the best at flying, and they were huge, so we would have probably seen them by now. "You could al-" I started to say, but was cut off by an extremely loud, cheerful-sounding unfamiliar voice,

"Hey guys !"

**((A/N: I hope this chapter was a little bit better than the last. I really tried to make a good cliffhanger with this one, so… I hope the ending was okay. Anyway, please review! I'd appreciate any tips that could help me out with this story.))**


	4. Chapter 4

**((A/N: Wow. O_O It's been months since I last updated this story. I guess I kind of just lost interest, seeing as I didn't even bother to update my Warriors story, either. Anyway, with school starting up again, I figured I would at least try to update a little more quickly. Super sorry about the whole waiting and stuff. I'm trying to get back into the writing mood. Oh, and by the way, thanks to **_**djpc450**_** and **_**StarOfCalamity**_** for reviewing! I appreciate it.))**

I instantly looked around the area, trying to find the source of the voice. After a few moments, though, I realized that no one was there. No one. At all. For a brief moment, I wondered if I was going crazy. "Did.. Did anyone else hear that besides me?" I asked, just to make sure.

"I did," The Gasman piped up from behind me. "But…" He sounded confused, "I don't see anyone; there's absolutely no one here but us."

"That's the strange thing," I mumbled to myself. This was starting to get really weird. There weren't any possible explanations for this, unless we were all slowly going psycho or something like that. I glanced at Angel. Her head was tilted slightly to the right, but, other than that, she seemed perfectly fine. If anything bad was supposed to happen to us, she would probably have known by now. Shaking my head, I said to the flock, "Well, maybe it was the… wind or something; anyway, let's just keep on moving." Right now, all I wanted to do was get out of there.

I felt a tiny bit better when we began to leave that place behind, though I couldn't keep that voice out of my head. It didn't sound like anyone that I knew, although I did know that it was too high-pitched to be a guy's voice.

By the time it got dark, I had already forgotten about the mysterious voice. I had too much to think about, anyway, without having to consider this extra problem. And it didn't seem important at the time, either. It just sort of slipped my mind. "I guess we'll have to find a place to sleep," I called out to everyone else.

I then heard Nudge say, "Oh, God. _Finally_. I mean, did we _really_ have to fly that long? I'm exhausted."

Deciding to ignore her, I scanned the ground for some place that would be suitable to sleep in for the night. We had passed the last town a couple of hours ago; now we were pretty much in the middle of nowhere. There were a few trees here and there, but for the most part, it was basically just grass and shrubs. Eventually I spotted an area with a few trees and a lot of shrubs. To me, it looked like the best spot to stay, so I said, "Hey, come on, guys, we're going to land down there." I then proceeded to point out the spot.

About twenty minutes later, all five of us were on the ground. Iggy and the Gasman were sitting around the small fire we had managed to make, while Nudge and Angel were looking through the backpacks for some old food. I sat down and joined them. After everyone had managed to at least eat something, I muttered, "I guess I'll take the first watch. I'll wake you up when it's your turn, Iggy."

He nodded at me, then said, "Okay."

By this time, the Gasman had already fallen asleep in a sitting position, leaning against one of the trees. Angel had climbed one of the trees and was sitting on a branch, looking exhausted. As for Nudge, she was still eating. Sighing, I walked a short distance away from them and sat on the ground, ready to take my watch.

**((A/N: It's pretty short.. I was kind of rushing on this one, because I wanted to make an update. Anyway, the next chapter will be better.))**


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